Tag: Colossians 1:9-10

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Focus Friday: Let’s Focus on Life, Unedited

Today I edited some video clips into a two-minute movie to show our church members how to install our online church directory on their phones. Our administrative assistant, Melissa, and I had recorded about six parts that had to be pieced together to produce a coherent message.

She did a great job explaining, but at one point we had to switch from my son’s phone to another friend’s phone because he didn’t have space available for the app. The first part of one clip was good, but there was a little goof toward the end. We stopped and started that part over. I clipped and moved and added titles to clarify a couple of steps.

I watched and tweaked it about ten times before I was satisfied that it would sound and look good on Sunday morning. Done!

Do you ever wish you could edit your life?

I sure do.

It would be nice to always have people see me at my best.

When I stumble over my words or say something hurtful, it would be awesome if I could move the marker back in time, cut out my blunder, and start over.

I could scrub broken ankles, bouts with depression, and car accidents from my timeline.

Hours and hours of time frittered away scrolling social media could be deleted and only the productive moments would remain.

We all know that’s not how life works. We’re stuck living out every second of the life we’ve been given—the good, the bad, the exciting, and the boring.

Living life unedited can inspire others. Not trying to hide our failures and setbacks can encourage people to keep going when they have similar experiences.

Let’s do our best and enjoy the life we’re living—in all its unedited glory.

“We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.” (Colossians 1:9–10 NIV)

Do you ever wish you could edit your life? How can focusing on God help you to do your best and live life unedited?

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Focus Friday: Let’s Focus on Revisiting Themes

After I uploaded last week’s blog post, I had a funny feeling I had already written about it before. I went to my blog and typed “doing it anyway” in the search box. To my amazement, two posts came up: The one I had just uploaded, and one from January 10, 2020. It had the exact same title and I had written it almost exactly one year before.

I was a little embarrassed at first, and then I got a bit concerned. I’ve written hundreds of blog posts. What if I have nothing new to say and I just start repeating myself from week to week? People will get bored, or confused, or annoyed!

But as I read the two posts, I realized that I had nothing to worry about. The content had the same title, but I was a year older and I was writing from a different place. Yes, I was still struggling with the temptation to quit when things got hard or when I didn’t feel like doing something, but I had moved ahead and done something anyway—two years in a row.

Even though I haven’t accomplished everything I’ve planned to do, I have finished many things in recent years. I have to keep training my mind to celebrate those successes instead of dwelling on the times when I failed and didn’t push forward.

It’s not bad to write about the same things over and over. If I continue to deal with procrastination, doubt, fear, anxiety, and depression from time to time, I can assume some of you need a reminder as you deal with those things as well.

The themes you revisit may be different than mine, but it’s perfectly okay for us to keep going back to the same words, ideas, and struggles. Hopefully, every time we revisit them we’ll be a bit further along in our journey and we’ll have learned some new insights that will help us get unstuck a little more quickly and we’ll be able to see progress.

You’ll probably see me writing about many of the same themes here on this blog, but I’ll try to at least make the titles different from now on.

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1:9–10 NIV)

Are there certain themes you keep returning to over and over? How can focusing on God help you to grow so you move forward each time you revisit a theme?